This publication is a contribution to the ongoing debate on the design of national strategies to reduce deforestation and forest degradation while contributing to the wellbeing of forest-dependent communities. It is the result of a South-South exchange in 2011, which brought together key decision-makers from the Congo Basin, Madagascar and Brazil to learn from Brazil’s community forest management experience. The main message of the report is that the advancing of community forestry - devolving forest management rights (and obligations) to local communities - can be an effective policy to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. However, for that to be the case, long-term support to forest-dependent communities and incentive mechanisms to compensate them for foregone revenues from conservation are required, which REDD+ has the potential of providing. Community forestry and REDD+ can thus be mutually reinforcing and contribute to sustainable development.